Gathering Light is a group exhibition that is loosely affiliated with the Light and Space Movement that gained predominance in the early 1960s and 70s in Los Angeles. Though the exhibit will include Larry Bell (considered to be one the movement’s pioneers and originators), the show’s focus includes a newer generation of artists working within this aesthetic. This movement is characterized generally by a Minimalistic emphasis on perceptual phenomena–i.e., abstracted, atmospheric shifts in color and light derived from nature. With the use of translucent or reflective materials, the viewer’s experience of light, space, and volume is the ultimate focus of the work.
The consuming immediacy of this particular kind of art demands that the viewer experience the work directly. The unfamiliar points of reference, including light and shadow, shift attention from the object itself to the visual phenomena it produces. Reflectivity, translucency, and opacity contribute to the over all elusiveness, rendering a midpoint between the sculpted object and sculpted space. The focus changes from the concrete to the conditional, pushing the boundary between art and audience. Utilizing pigment and other material that interact with the viewer’s perception of light and color, each painting/object shifts and reveals itself as the viewer moves forward, and around, to investigate the work. Colors change, as do our perceptions of spatial depth. The mutability of the real and the perceived are played out by the flattening of space and vibrations of pattern that influences the viewer’s vision and perception of that vision. The essential meaning of these works is experienced through the act of seeing–not merely looking and analyzing, but truly seeing. This engaged interaction–painting as experience, unencumbered by narrative–becomes a 2D presentation of 3D space quickened by light and resonating with color.
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